


Coming to Light

by Fanless



Series: 25/5 [2]
Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: Book: Night Watch, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Minor Canonical Character(s), POV Minor Character, POV Third Person, Present Tense, The People's Revolution of the Glorious Twenty-Fifth of May
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-22
Updated: 2016-06-22
Packaged: 2018-07-16 14:29:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7271941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fanless/pseuds/Fanless
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's a fine May morning when Reg climbs into the coffin and pulls the lid over himself like a blanket. Originally for the Glorious 25th of May 2010.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coming to Light

**Author's Note:**

> For the Glorious 25th of May, and by association all those who did not the job they had to do, but simply that which was in front of them.

 

It's a fine May morning when Reg climbs into the coffin and pulls the lid over himself like a blanket.

The sound of turf falling on the wood, shoveled with vim if not grace by Nobby and Colon, is oddly comforting. Once he's comfortably settled, Reg crosses his hands (briefly, his ankles as well, then uncrosses them when one starts to itch) and closes his eyes.

He doesn't let himself get worked up over mortality, or the lack of it. He doesn't feel claustrophobic and panic. He doesn't even wonder whether the beetles will get in through that crack in the corner again. Instead he doesn't quite _dream,_ but remembers...

* * *

-  
X X X X  
-

* * *

A dark room, perhaps, and someone in black.

I REALLY MUST INSIST, MISTER SHOE. YOU ARE INDEED DEAD.

"Oh, no," says Reg stalwartly, ignoring the voice of reason. He is good at this. "I can't be dead. I'm standing here talking to you, aren't I? I have been for quite some time."

YES. THAT YOU HAVE.

"And I've got a meeting to go to next Monday."

INDEED.

"And Treacle Mine Road needs me!" Reg says, suddenly energized by the fire of revolutionary spirit. "I can't stand about— although it's been lovely talking to someone who really knows how to _listen_ — I've got to get back to the barricades! Which way are they, would you say?"

Death gives up.

DOWN THAT WAY, he says, pointing behind Reg. GO TOWARD THE LIGHT.

"Thanks!" Reg pats himself, searching for his clipboard, then decides he must have left it back on the barricade. "And thank you for taking out those arrows," he adds. "It's a miracle I survived."

IT WILL BE.

"Are you sure you wouldn't like to aid us in opposing the sated bourgeois in the glorious crusade of freeing the oppressed of our proud and industrious city?"

I'D BETTER PASS. I CAN'T IMAGINE ANYONE WOULD BE PARTICULARLY HAPPY TO HAVE ME THERE.

Reg shakes the stranger's hand, feels how bony it is, reflects on what a shame it is that the poor beggars and monks don't get enough to eat in Ankh-Morpork these days and feels a swift glow of pride as he thinks of how the revolution will provide a chicken for every pot— and the pots, too. Then he turns and hurries toward the glint at the end of the tunnel.

* * *

-  
X X X X  
-

* * *

It's hard going. Harder than he expected. There are things in his way, hard things and soft crumbly things, and he's having to claw through them to get to the end, but he's not breathing hard the way he usually does after even a few minutes of physical exertion, in fact he doesn't seem to be breathing at all but strange to say he doesn't feel dizzy, the light's gone now— he doesn't know quite when or where it went— he's in the dark and the soft crumbly things are hitting him in the face and there seems to be something pushing at his back; suddenly he realizes that he's _lying on_ his back, he's _underneath_ something, he has a sudden horrible idea as to _what_ he's underneath but abruptly it doesn't matter because his hand breaks through to cold emptiness and the light is back, crisp and grey, and the light floods his vision as the rest of him follows his hand and his lungs expand because he forces them to (in the back of his mind something wonders about that) and the light glints off the chips of mica in the hastily erected tombstone—

—still standing after all these years.

* * *

-  
X X X X  
-

* * *

It's a fine May evening when Reg climbs out of his own grave for the twentieth time. Maybe, he thinks. Maybe someday he'll go back for good.

But tonight, the world is a great big kettle of fish. 

**Author's Note:**

> Minor edits. Originally posted on FF & DA.


End file.
